KARACHI: A girl, who had gone missing during the chaos and confusion caused by the bomb blast in Saddar on Thursday night, is now believed to have been abducted, according to police.

The girl was accompanied by her mother when the blast took place and claimed the life of a young passer-by besides causing injuries to 10 other persons and damage to properties, mainly vehicles.

The Preedy police have registered an FIR of kidnapping against unidentified suspects on the complaint of the missing girl’s brother, Yasir.

The police said that the15-year-old girl had gone to Bohri Bazaar for shopping along with her mother. They were returning home and passing through Daud Pota Road when the blast occurred.

The mother fell unconscious because of the impact of the explosion and when she regained consciousness, her daughter was not there. She looked for her but couldn’t find her.

South-SSP Asad Raza said a teenage girl had gone missing amid chaos after the explosion.

He said the police had registered a kidnapping case and with the help of close-circuit television camera footages, they were trying to trace out and recover the girl.

Money changer’s employee robbed

A company driver, Naseeb Razik, 48, was shot at and wounded during a robbery when he put up resistance near Regent Plaza on Sharea Faisal on Friday night, police said on Saturday.

He was taken to nearby Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where his condition was stated to be stable.

South-SSP Asad Raza said six suspects riding three motorbikes intercepted a car on main Sharea Faisal, snatched UAE currency worth over Rs5 million and wounded Naseeb over resistance.

The senior officer said the injured man was a driver of a firm located on Shaheed-i-Millat Road.

He had taken foreign currency from a money changer on I.I. Chundrigar Road within the remit of the Mithadar police station.

The police suspected that the robbers were chasing him from there. When they reached near Regent Plaza, the motorcyclists came in front of the car and tried to stop it. As the driver did not stop the vehicle, the armed robbers opened fire on him, forcing him to stop the vehicle. The company driver suffered bullet wounds in his hips. The SSP said the police were certain that the robbers had ‘inside information’.

The investigators have been geo-fencing the area to identify and arrest the suspects. SSP Raza regretted that the firm owner had sent his driver for exchange of huge foreign currency without any security guard.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2022